of Art, trans. by K. Jex Blake, with commentary, and historical
introduction by E. Sellers (London, 1896). On Pliny's supposed
portrait, see Bernoulli, Röm. Ikonogr. i. 288; on the Defloratio
Pliniana of Robert of Cricklade, K. Ruck, in S. Ber. of Munich
Acad., May 3, 1902, pp. 195–285 (1903). On Pliny's Authorities,
see especially F. Münzer, Beiträge zur Quellenkritik (Berlin, 1897)
and Detlefsen, Quellen und Forschungen zur alten Gesch. und Geog.
(1904 and 1908); on his Religion, Vorhauser (Innsbruck, 1860);
his Cosmology, Friese (Breslau, 1862); his Botany, Brosig (Gaudenz,
1883); Sprengel (Marbur, 1890, and in Rhein. Mus., 1891); Renjes
(Rostock, 1893); Abert Burghausen, 1896); and Stadler (Munich,
1891); his Mineralogy, Nies (Mainz, 188); his History of Art, O.
Jahn, in Sachsische Berichte (Leipzig, 1850); A. Brieger (Greifswald,
1857); Wustmann, Rhein. Mus. (1867); H. Brunn (Bonn, 1856,
and Munich, 1875); Th. Schreiber (Leipzig, 1872, and in Rhein.
Mus., 1876); Fürtwangler, in Fleckeisen's Jahrb., Suppl. (1877) vol. ix ;
Blumner, in Rhein. Mus. (1877); L. Urlichs (Wurzburg, 1878);
Oehmichen (Erlangen, 1880); Dalstein (Metz, 1885); H. Voigt
(Halle, 1887); H. L. Urlichs (Wurzburg, 1887); Holwerda, in
Mnemos. (1889); F. Munzer, in Hermes (1895, and Berlin, 1897);
Kalkmann (Berlin, 1898).
The fragments of the eight books, Dubii sermonis, have been collected by J. W. Beck (Leipzig, 1894). For further bibliographical details, see Mayor, Lat. Lit. (1875), 136–138; and Schanz, Röm. Litt. (Munich, 1901), §§ 490–494. (J. E. S.*)
PLINY, THE YOUNGER. Publius Caecilius Secundus, later known as Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (A.D. c. 61–c. 113), Latin author of the Letters and the Panegyric on Trajan, was the second son of Lucius Caecilius Cilo, by Plinia, the sister of the Elder Pliny. He was born at Novum Comum, the modern Como,
the date of his birth being approximately determined by the
fact that he was in his 18th year at the death of his uncle in
August A.D. 79 (Epp. vi 20, 5). Having lost his father at an
early age, he owed much to his mother and to his guardian,
Verginius Rufus, who had twice filled the office of consul and
had twice refused the purple (ii. 1, 8). He owed still more to his
uncle. When the Elder Pliny was summoned to Rome by
Vespasian in A.D. 72, he was probably accompanied by his nephew,
who there went through the usual course of education in Roman
literature and in Greek, and at the age of fourteen composed a
“Greek tragedy” (vii 4, 2). He afterwards studied philosophy
and rhetoric under Nicetes Sacerdos and Quintilian (vi. 6, 3,
ii 14, 9), and modelled his own oratorical style on that of Demosthenes,
Cicero and Calvus (i. 2). The Elder Pliny inspired his
nephew with something of his own indomitable industry; and in
August 79, when the author of the Historia naturalis lost his
life in the famous eruption of Vesuvius, it was the sister of the
Elder and the mother of the Younger Pliny who first descried
the signs of the approaching visitation, and, some twenty-seven
years later, it was the Younger Pliny who wrote a graphic account
of the last hours of his uncle, in a letter addressed to the historian
Tacitus (vi. 16). By his will the Elder Pliny had made his
nephew his adopted son, and the latter now assumed the nomen
and praenomen of his adoptive father.
A year later he made his first public appearance as an advocate (v. 8, 8), and soon afterwards became a member of the board of decemviri stlitibus judicandis, which was associated with the praetor in the presidency of the centumviral court. Early in the reign of Domitian he served as a military tribune in Syria (A.D. 81 or 82), devoting part of his leisure to the study of philosophy under the Stoic Euphrates (i. 10, 2). On returning to Rome he was nominated to the honorary office of sevir equitum romanorum, and was actively engaged as a pleader before the centumviri, the chancery court of Rome (vi. 12, 2).
His official career began in A.D. 89, when he was nominated by Domitian as one of the twenty quaestors He thus became a member of the senate for the rest of his life. In December 91 he was made tribune, and, during his tenure of that office, withdrew from practice at the bar (i. 23). Early in 93 he was appointed praetor (iii. 1 1, 2), and, in his year of office, was one of the counsel for the impeachment of Baebius Massa, the procurator of Hispania Baetica (iii. 4, vi. 29, vii. 33). During the latest and darkest years of Domitian he deemed it prudent to withdraw from public affairs, but his financial abilities were recognized by his nomination in 94 or 95 to the praefertura aerarii militaris (ix. 13, 11).
On the death of Domitian and the accession of Nerva he delivered a speech (subsequently published) in prosecution of Publicius Certus, who had been foremost in the attack on Helvidius Priscus (ix. 13). Early in 98 he was promoted to the position of praefect of the public treasury in the temple of Saturn. After the accession of Trajan in the same year, Pliny was associated with Tacitus in the impeachment of Marius Priscus for his maladministration of the province of Africa (ii. 11). The trial was held under the presidency of the emperor, who had already nominated him consul suffectus for part of the year A.D. 100. The formal oration of thanks for this nomination, described by Pliny himself as his gratiarum actio (iii. 13, 1 and 18, 1), is called in the MSS. the Panegyricus Trajano dictus.
The following year was marked by the death of Silius Italicus and Martial, who are gracefully commemorated in two of his Letters (iii. 7 and 21). It is probable that in 103–104 he was promoted to a place in the college of Augurs, vacated by his friend Frontinus (iv. 8), and that in 105 he was appointed curator of the river Tiber (v. 14, 2). In the same year he employed part of his leisure in producing a volume of hendecasyllabic verse (iv. 14, v. 10). He usually spent the winter at his seaside villa on the Latian coast near Laurentum, and the summer at one of his country houses, either among the Tuscan hills, near Tifernum, or on the lake of Como, or at Tusculum, Tibur or Praeneste.
It was probably in 104, and again in 106, that he was retained for the defence of a governor of Bithynia, thus becoming familiar with the affairs of a province which needed a thorough reorganization. Accordingly, about 111, he was selected by Trajan as governor of Bithynia, under the special title of “legate pro praetor with consular power.” He reached Bithynia in September, held office for fifteen months or more, and probably died in 113.
His health was far from robust. He speaks of his delicate frame (gracilitas mea); and he was apt to suffer from weakness of the eyes (vii. 21) and of the throat or chest (ii. 11, 15). Frugal and abstemious in his diet (i. 15; iii. 1 and 12), studious and methodical in his habits (i. 6, v. 18, ix. 36 and 40), he took a quiet delight in some of the gentler forms of outdoor recreation. We are startled to find him telling Tacitus of his interest in hunting the wild boar, but he is careful to add that, while the beaters were at work, he sat beside the nets and was busily taking notes, thus combining the cult of Minerva with that of Diana (i. 6). He also tells the historian that, when his uncle left Misenum to take a nearer view of the eruption of Vesuvius, he preferred to stay behind, making an abstract of a book of Livy (vi. 20, 5).
Among his friends were Tacitus and Suetonius, as well as Frontinus, Martial and Silius Italicus; and the Stoics, Musonius and Helvidius Priscus. He was thrice married; on the death of his second wife without issue, Trajan conferred on him the jus trium liberorum (A.D. 98), and, before 105, he found a third wife in the accomplished and amiable Calpurnia (iv. 19). He was generous in his private and his public benefactions (i. 19, 2, ii. 4, 2, vi. 32). At his Tuscan villa near Tifernum Tiberinum (iv. 1, 4), the modern Città di Castello, he set up a temple at his own expense and adorned it with statues of Nerva and Trajan (x. 8). In his lifetime he founded and endowed a library at his native place (i. 8, v. 7), and, besides promoting local education (iv. 13), established an institute for the maintenance and instruction of the sons and daughters of free-born parents (vii. 18). By his will he left a large sum for the building and the perpetual repair of public baths, and the interest of a still larger sum for the benefit of one hundred freedmen of the testator and, ultimately, for an annual banquet.
On a marble slab that once adorned the public baths at Comum, his distinctions were recorded in a long inscription, which was afterwards removed to Milan. It was there broken into six square pieces, four of which were built into a tomb within the great church of Sant’ Ambrogio. Of these four fragments only one survives, but with the aid of transcripts of the other three made by Cyriacus of Ancona. in 1442, the whole was
